The widespread failure that affected a number of Microsoft 365 services has reopened a discussion that goes beyond the technical defect itself, touching on a deeper issue related to the extent of companies and institutions’ reliance on a single digital services provider. While services returned to work, experts believe that the incident revealed the extent of the risks that may arise from this reliance if the central systems are exposed to any sudden malfunction.
Large numbers of companies, schools, and government institutions in Germany depend on Microsoft services and systems to manage their daily business. But the widespread failure that recently affected a number of the American company's services brought to the fore the warnings of experts and professional associations about the dangers of excessive reliance on a single digital provider.
The risk threatens not only systems but also businesses
Ralf Wintergerst, head of the German ICT industry association Bitcom, believes that mono-reliance on a single digital technology provider could turn into a serious weakness for companies. He says: “Whoever makes himself unilaterally dependent on centralized digital technologies exposes himself in emergency situations to production disruption and competitive losses.”
The importance of this warning increases in light of Bitcom data, which indicates that 96 percent of companies in Germany rely on digital technologies and services sourced abroad, while the majority of companies expect that a complete interruption of these services will lead to a direct impact on their production and commercial activities.
“Digital interconnectedness makes disconnecting more difficult.”
Georg Glaze, a professor of geography at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg who specializes in digital sovereignty research, draws attention to a different problem: the interconnectedness of modern digital services.
“The more interconnected between communications, data storage and business processes, the more difficult it becomes to replace individual components or move to another provider,” Glaze says.
From this standpoint, the problem does not lie in the malfunction alone, but rather in the fact that organizations have begun to build their entire business within integrated digital systems, which makes exiting or replacing them a complex and expensive process.
The issue is not only technical but also political
Information security expert Christopher Counts goes further, as he believes that complete reliance on Microsoft is not consistent with the concept of digital sovereignty or technical flexibility, and he says: “But this does not reflect digital sovereignty or sufficient resilience.”
According to Kontz, the risks are not only related to technical failures, but also extend to political and geopolitical dimensions. He explains this by saying: “We are not only dependent on Microsoft’s technical competence, but also on the good faith of the US government. Through sanctions, it can quickly deprive institutions or even entire countries of access to Microsoft cloud services.” Here the discussion turns from a mere technical glitch to a broader question about the independence of the European digital infrastructure.
Europe has no shortage of alternatives
For his part, information security consultant Manuel Atog believes that the problem does not lie in the absence of alternatives, but rather in the concentration of reliance on a limited number of giant companies. Atug calls for breaking this digital centralization, stressing that there are many alternatives in Germany and Europe that can contribute to reducing the risks resulting from relying on one provider.
These calls reflect a growing trend within Europe to promote local and European solutions in the areas of cloud computing, data storage and digital services.
Preparing for malfunctions is as important as fending off attacks
As for the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), it looks at the issue from the perspective of emergency preparedness. The office confirms that there are no indications that the recent outage resulted from a cyberattack, but it stresses that institutions must be able to continue working whether the cause of the outage was a technical error or a cyberattack.
According to the Authority, digital resilience does not only mean protecting systems from hacking, but also includes building alternatives and backup plans that ensure business continuity when malfunctions occur.
Alexander Rabe, Executive Director of the German Internet Economy Association (Echo), agrees with this proposal, which calls for the provision of “backup infrastructure, sufficient data center capacities, and independent options that can be resorted to in emergency situations.”
Transient malfunction or early warning?
The recent disruptions included essential services used by millions of people every day, including Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, and CoPilot. Although such incidents have become part of the reality of modern digital services, their recurrence raises increasing questions about the wisdom of concentrating so many vital functions at one provider.
